Accidental Century

cue sheet, before and after

17 May 2014

I should not be allowed to lead rides east of Route 1.  Without the hills to guide me, I mistake one road for the next, miss turns, and wind up handing four people five more miles than they'd bargained for on an already too-long-for-mid-May ride.

Jim and I left from my house and arrived at the East Picnic Area to find a charity walk/run event for  Attitudes in Reverse (with many a friendly therapy dog more than happy to check us out) overfilling the parking lot.

We started with two Jims, one Jackie, one John, and myself (Jackie eventually named me J-Laura for consistency), but finished with one fewer Jim, who was the victim of a spoke failure several miles before our first rest stop.  Plain Jim was able to loosen the break on the Other Jim's rear wheel enough that Other Jim was able to hobble, with a wobble that would make a hula dancer jealous, a few more miles to the Olde World Bakery in Smithville.  We left him there, basking in the sun, finishing a sandwich, with his son en route to the rescue. As we left, he said, "This is the best place I've ever been broken down."

At this point we were four miles over the distance I'd written on my cue sheet, but I had no idea what I'd done wrong.  I couldn't figure out how I'd screwed up when we got to Route 206 at the wrong time either.  We crossed and I pulled out my phone.

"Ohhhh, no, no, this is so wrong," I said.  "You guys mind riding on 206 for a bit?"

So we did, for less than a mile, with a big shoulder.  We stopped again at the Columbus General Store.  I'd like to give a shout-out to the baker of the banana bread, more banana than bread.

I got us back to the park without screwing up, despite my having forgotten to write a turn in.  I knew, more or less, where I was at that point.

We all  need to thank Mister Garmin, Jim's GPS, to whom I turned whenever I needed to verify a turn.  One of two things, no, make that three things, has to happen before I lead another ride in unfamiliar territory.  I need to study my routes much better; I need to give Jim the route ahead of time so he can load it in; and/or I should get myself a GPS.  I'm not inclined to do that last thing.  If I rely on a device to tell me when to turn, I'll be even worse at knowing where I am than I am now.  No, what I need to do is double-check my cue sheets and write in every single intersection, whether we cross it or pass it, when I'm leading in unfamiliar territory.

The upside to my being a total yutz today was that I was so close to 100 miles when Jim and I got back to my house that I decided to go for it.  I went inside first, to tell Jack what I was up to.  He didn't say anything; he just shook his head.

The odometer read 100 as I rounded the corner into the driveway.

I figured out two of my wrong turns.  Only when Jim sent me the route he'd recorded did I find the third.  With a little tweaking, I could edit this route into a real century.  One more wrong turn would do it...